Reaction Time
by SamiCausti
Summary: They promised to be professional, but there are those moments when priorities change unexpectedly. Short one-shot, Remily shipping.


A/N: Just a short one. Fairly implausible, really; they tend to keep their heads on their shoulders and know better than to do things that could get them in heaps and heaps of trouble- but the idea was too cute to resist, so...

All the lights were out. Carter had hit the main switch on his way in and there was nothing left on but the emergency lights – the glowing red and green _EXIT _signs above doors. Something hit Prentiss wrong about a school darkened and deserted on a Tuesday morning. _Always a Tuesday. _Phoenix residents – and any Arizona residents who watched the news – had learnt to dread Tuesday mornings over the past month and a half. They dreaded the explosion that would echo off the buildings, the searing flames that would lick the clear blue skies, the column of black smoke, the acrid scent of burning rubble and flesh that would fill the hot city air. Always a public place. Always somehow significant – always so apparently random. A bowling alley. A bus terminal. A restaurant. A second-hand store. A church. And now a school.

**"I found him."** Reid's voice sounded low, cautious in Prentiss' ear. She glanced back at Morgan, who had paused, gun and flashlight still outstretched, face a mask of concentration. A fly buzzed against the window, oblivious to the tense situation around it. Hotch's voice crackled on.

**"Reid, where are you?"**

**"Boiler room. He has a bomb. Get everyone out." **Reid sounded calm, almost casual, as if he didn't quite grasp – or perhaps simply didn't care about – the connection between his words and their desperate situation. They'd profiled this - an end game, a final, fatal blaze of glory. The man was desperate and flamboyant. He had lost everything. He'd been ignored, brushed aside for years, and he wanted his voice heard – his last cry, one that simply could not be ignored.

**"It'll be one hell of an explosion," **Morgan muttered grimly. Hell yes it would. The ancient school building would make excellent material for an impressive ending. They'd already cleared the place of students and faculty, and now the old building held only years of memories and academic relics, agents, bomb squad personnel, and one psychotic bomber with nothing left to live for and a flare for the dramatic. This explosion was the one he truly cared about. This explosion was going to send his message… _Not if we can help it. _Prentiss and Morgan were already headed back the way they'd come, boots loud against the tile, their footsteps echoing in the empty building. They'd come up the stairs only moments before, and now they descended, almost sprinting over the scuff marks and scars of years upon years of students, teachers, and janitors. Prentiss ignored the rail, gun still held firm in her right hand and flashlight in her left.

**"Sending backup,"** Hotch told Reid. They rounded the corner at the landing and started down the second flight of stairs. **"Can you see the bomb?"**

**"No." ** Reid's voice was immediate, emphatic. **"I mean, yes, but don't send backup." **Following Morgan out the door at the bottom of the stairs, Emily felt her heart freeze for a bare moment at Reid's words. They didn't pause, though, turning off and hurrying in the direction of the boiler room. Hotch's voice was on right away – his stern unit-chief voice that brooked no argument.

**"Reid –" ** The young genius cut him off.

**"He's got charges laid everywhere; no telling how many. His hand is on the detonator. This place is a deathtrap." ** _Deathtrap. _The word rang ominously in Prentiss' ears, rendered worse by Reid's matter-of-fact tone. The silence seemed unbearably long. She and Morgan still rushed toward the boiler room, passing deserted classrooms, hallways, offices. Hotch's voice stopped them.

**"Right. Everyone out. We're getting clear. Reid, get the hell out of there."** Adrenaline spiked Emily's heartrate. Her steps slowed, and she glanced around, dark eyes searching for the nearest exit. Reid's voice crackled back on.

**"I think I can talk him down, Hotch."** Morgan had already turned off down another hallway, long strides carrying him rapidly toward the exit – and away from the boiler room, the bomber, and Reid. Emily kept pace for about three strides and then stopped cold, one leg still planted behind the other halfway through a step, hand on her gun where she'd been sliding it back into the holster.

**"Morgan!"** He half-turned at her voice, still moving away down the hallway. She'd barely known she was speaking, but the stricken look on her face made the other agent pause.

**"Prentiss. Let's go."** She was never irrational on the field. It was why she was such a good agent; she didn't let emotion in, didn't deal in anything but facts and hypotheses. A cool head and clear thinking saved lives. Emotion could wait until later, if it was necessary at all. But now –

**"Reid's still down there." ** Morgan's eyes held hers, his face impassable.

**"Reid can handle himself. Going back won't help anything." **The agent part of her mind agreed completely. It was nothing but added risk. They couldn't make the situation any better and they could make it immeasurably worse. They would take the worst-case scenario from one dead agent to three. The agent part of her knew the numbers. The woman part cried out in protest – but the agent side won out. As Morgan turned again and kept moving, she followed, legs moving automatically, long habit keeping her alert as Hotch's voice continued over her heart's pounding.

**"Reid, get out of there."** There was no answer from Reid. _Dammit, Reid, leave… Don't you dare die for a guy like that. _Morgan slammed into the nearest door with a red _EXIT _sign glowing above it - a brown-painted service door leading out the back of the building. It clanged open and they burst out into the afternoon sunlight. Prentiss could feel the difference beneath her feet as they moved from tile hallway to cement sidewalk, and the sun hit her head mercilessly as she stepped out of the school's shade. She could see the official-looking perimeter created by masses of emergency responders, reporters, and curious onlookers who were doing no earthly good but couldn't be completely gotten rid of. A couple of fire trucks were parked sideways, imposing and impressive, and of no good whatsoever until the bombs had actually blown and there was a fire to clean up. There were a few police cars with their lights flashing, and an ambulance. The press was there, of course. _Can't keep the sharks away, blood or not, _she thought irritably. JJ was standing in front of a group of them, shaking her head; Emily could see the blonde ponytail flashing in the sunlight as her head moved. Hotch was already standing in the clear space in front of the mass of lights and vehicles and people, one hand at his earpiece, sunglasses on, facing the school. The ground pounded away under her feet as she and Morgan ran the distance from the school to Hotch. He turned only slightly to glance at them. Prentiss took quick stock of the team, by force of habit. Hotch and Morgan beside her, JJ trying to keep the reporters back, Rossi walking toward the Suburban…_Reid. _Reid inside the school still, in the boiler room, facing a man with an enormous number of explosives, a detonator, and the will to use them.

**"I think I can stop him, Hotch."**

**"No." **_Get the hell out of there._

**"If this building goes, it'll take out –"**

**"Buildings can be rebuilt – Reid, do ****_not _****stay in that boiler room." **The silence hung heavy. Emily discovered that her arms were clenched, trying to crush her ribcage through the heavy, stiff FBI vest, and that her were lungs frozen around a full breath. She forced herself to let the air out and suck in fresh oxygen, slowly, steadily. She could feel the sun burning her nose and cheeks, turning her hair into a layer of searing heat. A distant, trivial part of her wondered whether it was possible to get a sunburn through pants. _Reid. Get out. Tell me you're safe outside. _There was no sign of him. No familiar long, thin shadow on the parched grass; no sound of his voice calling out; no crackle on the comm. _Where are you?_

The first explosion sounded distant, almost as if they might have imagined it. A soft popping sound, a low rumble – and then the world exploded before her eyes. Windows burst outward in a deafening crash of shattered glass. The roar of the bombs and the flames, the flying shrapnel and the collapsing structure filled her ears as a cloud of black smoke billowed into the pristine blue of the Arizona sky. For a moment the entire school was engulfed in flames. Prentiss felt the heat waves slamming into her, burning against her face. The world was leaping into action around her – the firefighters already trying to douse the flames before they could spread, trying to make the place safe enough for the bomb squad to move in. The reporters were going crazy behind her, cameras at all angles trying to capture the view, microphones thrust in the direction of anyone in uniform. Someone in the crowd of onlookers was screaming. Hotch's voice beside her sounded distant.

**"Reid, what's your status?" **His voice was terse. Sharp. Almost angry. And there was no answer. The flames crackled. Part of the building that had still been standing collapsed suddenly, the loud crash sending a renewed wave of raised voices through the crowd. Somehow the flagpole in front of the building was still standing, the stars and stripes at the top blackened and singed and the Arizona flag beneath it half blown away by the explosions and flying rubble.

**"I'm out." **Reid's voice was barely audible, rough, as if he were talking around a cough, but it was unmistakably his voice. Prentiss felt her heartbeat pick up again and a breath burst out of her in a _whoosh _of relief. She realized her fingers were trembling and clenched them into fists against her sides, arms tight around her chest. She seemed to have lost all ability to think cohesively; the only identifiable thought running through her head was that Reid was alive. Out. Not buried in a collapsed building, burning underneath rubble where they couldn't reach him.

**"Where are you?" **He didn't answer. There was a sound that might've been his breathing, or an attempt at speech, but nothing… And then there was a shadow on the grass. Long. Thin. Reid-shaped. Prentiss didn't realize she was running toward him until she had to slow abruptly to avoid slamming into him. He looked like he might topple over at a touch, but he looked whole. He coughed, paused, long hands looking uncertain of where exactly they should be. She hesitated just long enough to see his smile before she took the last step, arms tightening around him fiercely. He was perfectly still a moment, and then she felt his arms slide around her, one hand against the side of her face, fingers slipping into her hair.

**"Dammit, Reid, you can't ****_do _****that to me…" **Her voice was muffled against the rough bulletproof vest, and there was a catch in it that she didn't like, but …hell, he was alive. She didn't care what her voice sounded like.

**"I, uh, left…"** Obviously. Or he wouldn't be standing here now, so warm and solid and alive. One of her hands found the back of his neck and pulled his head down toward her. **"He had timers running down –" **Her mouth against his stopped the explanation and for a moment she felt him kissing her back before he broke away. **"Um – Emily – we're in a public place –" **She interrupted him again. His arms tightened around her. **"We're on a case – and we're supposed to be professional –" **She pulled back just a little, enough to see his eyes and glare at him.

**"This is professional – hell, I thought you were ****_dead_****, damn you." **He blinked, slid one thumb across her cheek and she realized she'd been crying. His mouth quirked into a half smile before he kissed her again. Hotch was probably going to fire them when they got back, but…

**"You know –" **_Stop talking, Reid. _But she loved his talking – **"another person's saliva is proven to be a very effective lip balm." **Emily grinned.

**"That's what we'll tell Hotch when he starts lecturing."**

**"It's true; scientifically –" **Reid sounded almost worried, a little uncertain – he always did when he wasn't sure whether she was serious or not. Emily discovered that laughing didn't inhibit her ability to kiss him.


End file.
